The following description is provided to assist the understanding of the reader. None of the information provided or references cited is admitted to be prior art to the present technology.
Many electronic devices include a user interface that allows people to interact with these devices. The increasingly convenient nature of user interfaces, such as touch-based displays, has made personal electronics more accessible and appealing to larger markets. Further, there is a growing demand to develop the next generation of user interfaces from flexible or stretchable materials in order to incorporate them into a greater variety of electronic devices, such as displays, sensors, robotics, medical devices, and video games. The development of improved user interfaces, such as touch-based displays, depends in part upon the discovery of useful polymer and co-polymer materials from which they are made.
Many polymers and co-polymers have shortcomings that limit or preclude their use in the next-generation of electronic user interfaces. For example, styrene-based polymers commonly succumb to photo-oxidative yellowing and embrittlement. As such, styrene-based polymers and co-polymers are generally unsuitable for use in user interfaces that will be exposed to light or air. Alternatively, acrylic polymers are more robust, better suited to light or air, and thus have been more extensively incorporated into electronic devices for indoor and outdoor use. For example, DR1-methacrylate (2-{N-ethyl-N-[4-(4-nitrophenylazo)phenyl]amino}ethyl methacrylate) has been incorporated into polymers and co-polymers for sensor and optical user interface technologies. Acrylics have also been used as host materials to functionalize luminescent molecules for applications related to user interfaces such as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Accordingly, a greater variety of resilient acrylic polymers and co-polymers, and methods of making the same, are needed to produce improved materials for use in the next-generation of electronic materials and user interfaces.